Cuddles remembered the creature. Cuddles remembered the smell. Vaguely, but he did remember.
He saw the creature stretch out a long red thing towards Zac, and it touched his mouth. Then Cuddles saw the creature appear to want to pull the red thing back, but it couldn't.
The creature paused, then stretched the red thing even more and wrapped it around Zac. Then it pulled out a yellow rectangular flat thing and dropped it on the floor behind it.
Abruptly the creature - and Zac - disappeared.
**********
It was only a matter of minutes before the whole Hanson family knew what happened. Everyone was in the lounge room except Isaac, who was on his was home.
Avie was miserable enough having accidentally frozen her brother, but she was in tears again now that he disappeared.
Taylor was in shock. One moment he could feel Zac's empathic signature... the next, gone. He had raced back in, only to find Zac gone and Cuddles running around in a mad panic.
"Taylor, you can't blame yourself." Diana said.
"Yes I can." He replied unhappily. "I shouldn't have turned off the emotion part of my empathic block. I would have known there was someone there and what they were up to, and I could have stopped them. But, see, I kept getting the exact same emotion from Zac, no fluctuation or anything and it was really disorienting."
"It's ok Taylor." Diana assured. "How were you supposed to know what would happen?"
"Just a moment, how long was it between the time that you left the room, and the time that Zac disappeared?" Walker asked suddenly.
Taylor shrugged.
"Umm, a minute? Not long."
"What does that suggest to you?"
"It suggests," Isaac said, walking in, "that there's another anomaly."
"Or maybe not an anomaly..." Taylor whispered. "Maybe... an alien?"
No one had much of a chance to reply, for Cuddles leapt over to Isaac, and in it's, uhh, grip, a yellow envelope.
Everyone watched as Isaac opened it up and read the typed note it contained aloud.
To the Hansons,
You will never see Zac again so don't bother looking for him.
The Goblin
TO BE CONTINUED...